


of baseball caps and badly reflected reflections

by WabiSabi



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: BAMF hiro hamada, Dimension Travel, Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Older Hiro Hamada, Overprotective Tadashi Hamada, Secret Identity, Smoking, They become friends, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Young Hiro Hamada, kinda of, older hiro went through a lot so he´s moody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:35:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WabiSabi/pseuds/WabiSabi
Summary: Takachiho was a strange guy for sure. He was always so serious and hated sweets and didn´t let anyone hug him.Hiro wondered what that said about him. After all, an alternative version of him is still him to some degree. Right?(or where Hiro time travels and fixes everything and unintentionally becomes his own very first friend. And also gives Tadashi the older brother he never knew he needed.)





	of baseball caps and badly reflected reflections

Hiro looked up from his computer at the noise and saw his colleague bending over the table to grab the tool he had just knocked on the floor. The baseball cap was on the table, so the somehow long strands fell lightly on his face before he straightened and went back to working on his next project.

There was a moment of silence when Hiro continued to watch him. After a series of annoyed hand movements, Takachiho finally picked up the fake glasses from the top of the keyboard and used them to hold the long bangs.

He saved this fact for the next time Aunt Cass recommended a haircut because Takachiho could be incredibly hardheaded when he wanted to.

Hiro briefly reflected on what this implied about himself – after all, an alternate version of you is still you, to some degree. Right? Even though he and the 21-year-old guy on the other side of the room had almost nothing in common.

Oh well, of course, they both shared a certain physical similarity, even considering the seven years separating them. Takachiho had longer hair always tied in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck and wore rectangular glasses with no prescription – a relatively recent addition, according to the man himself – but apart from that, Hiro was able to recognize himself in the older features.

Only...

Not really.

Looking at that young man with indifferent eyes and cautious reflexes, guard so high that Hiro wondered if it had ever been any other way – Hiro could not find himself at all. Where would he be inside that person who smiled controlled smiles, scheduled for the moments? Takachiho, who avoided looking at Tadashi in the eyes and never sat inside the group, who didn´t like hugs and refuse Aunt Cass's pastries with a polite nod.

Hiro and Takachiho were supposed to be the same person and sometimes Hiro wondered what happened.

-

What happened was that Takachiho saved his life and that was solemnly the only reason why Hiro didn´t run off in the opposite direction when the true story was revealed due to the discovery of a sequence of photos of him and his family on someone else´s phone – from an _older_ person, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, he knows that if a strange older person offers you candy or starts talking to you a little too much interested, you start screaming for the nearest police officer. Tadashi and Aunt Cass had given him this speech several times during his lifetime.

But hey, the guy had saved his life. _Literally_. More than one time. If that didn´t make the person deserve a chance to explain themselves, then nothing would.

And anyway, they never accused Hiro of being wise.

So.

Back to the subject, because he was getting ahead of himself here. The first time he saw Takachiho, what happened was that he had been cornered after a robot fighting ring after he had emptied the pockets of all the competitors of the night, by an evil loser and five thugs carrying baseball bats, brass knuckles and other general things that wouldn´t do no good to his health.

He tried to smile, a friendly expression, as he backed away as fast as he could without running. He had already learned this in school: bullies are like dogs, they will only chase you if you run away from them.

He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Hey, guys, there´s no need for that, right? It was just some pocket change! Why fight?”

There the cracking of fingers and Hiro automatically winced, seeing the baseball bats swinging menacingly. It was like a gang, a movie-like gang. Except he'd rather watch them on the other side of a screen than this 4D version in front of him. Hiro never liked 3D movies anyway. They made his head dizzy.

Metaphorically, though he suspected that soon, it would soon be literally.

"Shut the fuck up, brat. Ya´ll learn that you don´t mess with people outside your league,” The boss spat and urgh, disgusting. Why the brutes were so fond of spitting?

“Consider the lesson learned," Hiro replied, feeling his smile break on the edges as the group began to close around him. Apparently, his luck had ended today in the ring, and this caused, in addition to the more superficial and immediate panic, a purely interior grunt of resignation, for he could _hear_ the lecture when he got home with a black eye.

He closed his eyes and shrunk, hugging his head as practice told him was the best option-

There were a strangled cry and several alarmed gasps.

Hiro immediately opened his eyes again and the first thing he noticed was the circle around him broken and tense, all facing the other side. The second was one of the minions on the floor, wringing with moans of pain. The third and last was a sneaker on the back of the said minion, which led to a hooded figure with a cap, almost invisible in the alley´s shadows.

They put baseball bat casually on the shoulder, that Hiro was pretty sure belonged to the wringing man.

The gang leader, standing almost beside him, gritted his teeth in a snarl. "Who are you, you son of a bitch?!"

The figure seemed to nod, a casual smile appearing white in the dark "Nuh-huh, you forgot the magic word."

The entire group seemed to shudder in anger like a single being at the provocation and before Hiro could even understand the shift on the atmosphere, chaos exploded.

What happened next was... humiliating, to say the least. His own ego ached a little out of sympathy, so big was the third party´s shame he was forced to witness, for the whole fight – a term used here quite freely – lasted less than a minute. It was a quick and precise sequence of blows with the baseball bat, each movement knocking out an opponent, and even the gun the gang boss pulled out in panic did not last long enough to cause more than brief alarm.

A blink later, the gun was in hoodie stranger´s hands, who dismounted it in abrupt and familiar gestures before throwing the pieces disinterestedly to the sides.

Hiro whistled, impressed. The guy had style.

"Dude, that was _awesome_."

The stranger turned to him and he caught a glimpse of a scar on their chin. But beyond that, with their face covered as it was, he couldn´t see anything else besides the lack of boobs – which was still not a 100% certain. The hooded head tilted in an inquiring movement, and Hiro felt the stranger was raising an eyebrow at him.

"You should go home, kid," they said, indicating the exit from the alley with the chin.

Hiro nodded. “Do not worry, man, I´m out of here. Thanks, by the way." He winked, making two finger guns at the hoodie figure, before turning on his heels and running.

Having managed to get home in the nick of time, with Tadashi's motorcycle roaring at the top of the street and Aunt Cass finishing closing the Lucky's Cat, he didn´t have time to even think about the stranger who helped him. The time between getting home and sleeping was spent trying to metaphorically save his neck from the suspicious look of his older brother (who sometimes seemed to forget that, acting instead as a legitimate _mother goose_ ). That apparently didn´t put much faith in his story of having stayed all day in the park when he noticed his crumpled dirty clothes.

Thanks to the skies, Tadashi had been working from early morning to late at night on his new project (of which he hadn´t said anything about and Hiro had not asked, because he didn´t want to show interest in anything connected to universities and encourage a new lecture about ‘future’ and ‘doing something with his life’). So he was too tired to try to wring the truth out of Hiro.

So, this way, the previous events were readily condensed into a forgettable memory of another day. And the stranger categorized as a happy and inconsequential coincidence, who he would never meet again.

-

Hiro was wrong, of course.

The second time they ran into each other was once again in the aftermath of another robot ring, and once again because Hiro had angered the exact wrong people and because – for reasons he would only find out long afterward – Takachiho intervened and saved his skin.

It went like this:

he was running madly through a labyrinth of out-of-use tunnels, six or seven angry losers on his heels when he heard a sudden cry to his left.

_"Get down!"_

By pure impulse, Hiro obeyed and threw himself on the ground. In the next instant, a figure came up from the next corner with a piece of wood in their hands that they spun around like a baseball bat, hitting squarely the face of the nearest pursuer. The sound of breaking bones echoed through the tunnel, making Hiro shrink in horror, and the guy collapsed limp, already unconscious. The other five immediately stopped, looking alarmed at the new figure.

Hiro turned on the ground and stared wide-eyed at his savior, feeling his heart pounding with adrenaline. The person in question was without the hood this time, the cap turned back, and that was how Hiro discovered that ‘they’ was actually a man of Asian descent who couldn´t be much older than Tadashi, with black hair pulled in a small ponytail.

It was only the lower height and the voice that prevented Hiro, in a first second of panic, confusing him with his brother.

(And the fact that he had just plunged the face of a guy with the piece of wood, without showing a trace of hesitation or remorse. You know, something extremely violent and not Tadashi- _I-bring-an-extra-obento-everyday-for-the-street-cats-and-help-old-people-cross-the-street_.)

"Y... you..."

The man gave him a brief glance from the corner of his eye, an eyebrow raised like a silent question. About _what_ , he had no idea. In the next moment, however, the group that was chasing him decided they had already waited long enough and advanced all at once on the new foe.

Hiro let out a frightened yelp and instinctively tried to pull away when the first gangster jumped on him. But the attack was interrupted by a violent kick from the hoodie man, that sent the man flying against the tunnel wall, a moment before deflecting to the side, avoiding a punch to then carry out an extremely _ninja_ move that ended with the aggressor on the floor.

Hiro ended up losing track of the fight after that, because like the first time, it was very fast and definitive. A few seconds later, all six of the gangsters were on the floor, fainted or rolling in pain.

And the guy who had just saved him in front of him, looking like he didn´t even sweat.

"You should consider a less dangerous hobby," the man commented casually. Advice from one stranger to another. "Or something less likely to make you lose your teeth."

Hiro blinked, still in shock. "Uh, I... I'll think about it?"

The stranger made a sound from the back of his throat, not seeming to have any special interest whether Hiro would listen to his advice or not. He approached in two steps and crouched. "Are you hurt?"

He was surprised when, out of nowhere, he began to feel pain radiating from his left foot. When he looked, his ankle was swollen and red. _“_ Oh, I think... I twisted my foot."

The stranger scratched absently at his chin before sighing, the scar he had noticed before more visible. "Great,” he murmured sarcastically and then, without any warning, Hiro felt himself being lifted from the back of his jacket like a disobedient kitten and thrown over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Immediately he let out an indignant shriek and tried to kick.

"What- let me go, you freak! Hey!"

"You're too noisy."

"Let me go! SMALL CHILDREN BEING KIDNAPPED! _HELP!_ ”

He heard a muffled sound, like a dry chuckle, before the man replied disdainfully. "Relax, brat. If I were going to kidnap you, you wouldn´t be awake to scream."

"That´s supposed to _comfort me?_ "

"No, it's just a fact. Besides, this is like one of the last places in this city where people´d help you. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is where the kidnapped people are taken to. "

Hiro struggled a little more, but after realizing that his effort was doing nothing but tiring himself and making his ankle throb painfully, he gave up. The guy did not even seem to notice the difference. Asshole. "Where are you taking me, then?" He asked, grumpy.

Considering the situation, he had a slight suspicion that he should be more worried and panicked perhaps. After all, even if he did save him twice so far, he knew nothing about the guy. It could very well be an elaborate scheme to gain his confidence and then kidnap him in silence. He could be a member of an evil super secret organization that intended to enslave him for his genius and then make him build evil robots for years. Until he could escape, then he would join efforts with other people to help destroy his own evil creations.

Ooh, that would be _cool_.

The stranger interrupted his fantasying of how he would place a fatal flaw on his evil robots that only he would know about and how he would build the perfect _good_ robot to defeat them, with a: "To your home."

This froze his thoughts immediately.

"What?" He kicked again, trying to turn his head enough to see the guy. Unsuccessfully. "You know where I _live?_ "

"Don´t be stupid. Of course not."

Ah. Less alarming.

"So how do you plan to take me home?"

"You're going to tell me where to go."

Alarming again.

"For you to kidnap me during the night? Fuck that!" He tried to kick the guy's belly, but the blow ended in the air as the man simply let go of him for a second, causing Hiro to slide back with a surprised cry. Then he went back to holding him firmly by the waist, preventing the fall and leaving Hiro´s heart in the throat as a consequence.

"Why would I kidnap you?" He asked casually and disinterestedly, ignoring the mini heart attack he just caused and _gods_ , Hiro just didn´t bite him with all his strength (childish, he admitted, but _hey!_ A boy got use the weapons he has) because in that pose, if the guy accidentally let him go again, it´d face to face with the floor. And Hiro liked his nose, thank you very much. It was not the most beautiful or the most perfect, but it was his and they had been together since he was born and although they have had their moments in the past, Hiro appreciated the 13 years it helped him breathe.

He gritted his teeth. "You're the pervert stalker who wants to know the address of the injured little kid. You tell me."

"Now you're being discriminatory," the stranger replied, and for the first time, Hiro heard something beyond the monotonous, disinterested tone. Something close to amused, for his total irritation. "And the arrogance! What makes you think you'd be my type?"

Hiro felt his mouth drop (even against gravity) and he became unable to respond for two entire shocked seconds. Then he swelled with indignation and managed in a phenomenal effort to raise his upper body to shout in the guy's ear. "How dare you? I'm _adorable!_ I'm everybody´s type!"

"Uh-hu. Anyway, if you don´t tell me your address I'll take you to the hospital."

"Don´t change the subject! And you will not! Put me down, I'm going home alone!"

"Sure."

_"Put me down!"_

-

In Takachiho´s favor, the guy didn´t slap him once during the journey to the hospital.

And that, more than knocking out six brutes alone, was impressive.

-

Scratch anything good he said about Takachiho. He was a damn double-faced stalker.

Hiro wasn´t even sure _how_ he found out his real name and gotten his emergency phone number because he had not said a single true info while they were filling out the form at the emergency room.

Suffice it to say that the bastard stole his lollipop – which the nurse had given him for being "adorable" and hey, what had he said about being everyone's type? – and simply walked away, abandoning him to the claws of the dragon Cassandra Hamada a second before she emerged through the hospital doors like a hurricane.

His aunt's not-so-worried and unbelievably unhappy expression was enough for him to get that his injury had already been cleared as not serious and the context of how he had it explained.

_Damn two-faced son of a gun!_

"Ouch, Aunt Cass! Sorry, sorry, sorry-!"

"You irresponsible knucklehead! You _bet_ you'll be sorry after I´m done with you!"

"Aunt Cass-"

"Not a hoot!"

Hiro grunted grumpily, massaging his ear. But he was quiet for the whole lecture on the way home. Who knows, if he behaved, maybe Aunt Cass wouldn´t say anything to Tadashi?

He could live without another sore ear.

That didn´t happen, of course, and Hiro spent the following night with both ears red and mentally cursing that cursed snitch.

It was only a while after he realized that he didn't even have a name to swear at.

Oh, rude. _Definitely_ rude.

**Author's Note:**

> So to be clear, Takachiho IS Hiro from the future, the one who lost Tadashi, formed the Big Hero 6, etc. Not a Hiro from another dimension. The name is just my little tribute to the comic!


End file.
